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Recent XPRT mentions in the tech press

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on November 30, 2023

Each month, we send out a BenchmarkXPRT Development Community newsletter that contains the latest updates from the XPRT world and provides a summary of the previous month’s XPRT-related activity, including mentions of the XPRTs in the tech press. More people read the weekly XPRT blog than receive the monthly newsletter, so we realized that some blog readers may be unaware of the wide variety of tech outlets that regularly use or mention the XPRTs.

For today’s blog, we want to give readers a sampling of the XPRT press mentions we see on a weekly basis. Recent mentions include:

If you don’t currently receive the monthly BenchmarkXPRT newsletter, but would like to join the mailing list, please let us know! There is no cost to join, and we will not publish or sell any of the contact information you provide. We will send only the monthly newsletter and occasional benchmark-related announcements, such as patch notifications or news of upcoming benchmark releases.

Justin

Posted in Acer, Apple, ASUS, benchmark, BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, CrXPRT, results, Samsung, WebXPRT | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Passing two important WebXPRT milestones

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on November 15, 2023

Over the past few months, we’ve been excited to see a substantial increase in the total number of completed WebXPRT runs. To put the increase in perspective, we had more total WebXPRT runs last month alone (40,453) than we had in the first two years WebXPRT was available (36,674)! This boost has helped us to reach two important milestones as we close in on the end of 2023.

The first milestone is that the number of WebXPRT 4 runs per month now exceeds the number of WebXPRT 3 runs per month. When we release a new version of an XPRT benchmark, it can take a while for users to transition from using the older version. For OEM labs and tech journalists, adding a new benchmark to their testing suite often involves a significant investment in back testing and gathering enough test data for meaningful comparisons. When the older version of the benchmark has been very successful, adoption of the new version can take longer. WebXPRT 3 has been remarkably popular around the world, so we’re excited to see WebXPRT 4 gain traction and take the lead even as the total number of WebXPRT runs increases each month. The chart below shows the number of WebXPRT runs per month for each version of WebXPRT over the past ten years. WebXPRT 4 usage first surpassed WebXPRT 3 in August of this year, and after looking at data for the last three months, we think its lead is here to stay.

The second important milestone is the cumulative number of WebXPRT runs, which recently passed 1.25 million, as the chart below shows. For us, this moment represents more than a numerical milestone. For a benchmark to succeed, developers need the trust and support of the benchmarking community. WebXPRT’s consistent year-over-year growth tells us that the benchmark continues to hold value for manufacturers, OEM labs, the tech press, and end users. We see it as a sign of trust that folks repeatedly return to the benchmark for reliable performance metrics. We’re grateful for that trust, and for everyone that has contributed to the WebXPRT development process over the years.

We look forward to seeing how far WebXPRT’s reach can extend in 2024! If you have any questions or comments about using WebXPRT, let us know!

Justin

Posted in benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, Browser-based benchmarks, Cross-platform benchmarks, History of benchmarking, Performance benchmarking, results, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 3, WebXPRT 4 | Tagged , , , , , , , |

Let the XPRTs be your holiday shopping companion!

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on November 9, 2023

The holiday shopping season is right around the corner, and choosing the right tech gift can be a daunting task. If you’re considering new phones, tablets, Chromebooks, laptops, or desktops as gifts this year, and are unsure where to get reliable device information, the XPRTs can help!

The XPRTs provide objective, reliable measures of a device’s performance that can help cut through competing marketing claims. For example, instead of guessing whether the performance of a new phone justifies its price, you can use its WebXPRT performance score to see how it stacks up against both older models and competitors while tackling everyday tasks.

A good place to start looking for device scores is our XPRT results browser, which lets you access our database of more than 3,500 test results from over 150 sources, including major tech review publications around the world, OEMs, and independent testers. You can find a wealth of current and historical performance data across all the XPRT benchmarks and hundreds of devices. Learn how to use the results browser here.

If you’re considering a popular device, chances are good that a recent tech review includes an XPRT score for it. Go to your favorite tech review site and search for “XPRT,” or enter the name of the device and the appropriate XPRT (e.g., “Pixel” and “WebXPRT”) in a search engine. Here are a few recent tech reviews that used the XPRTs to evaluate popular devices:

The XPRTs can help consumers make better-informed and more confident tech purchases this holiday season, and we hope you’ll find the data you need on our site or in an XPRT-related tech review. If you have any questions about the XPRTs, XPRT scores, or the results database please feel free to ask!

Justin

Posted in Acer, Apple, ASUS, benchmark, Chromebooks, CrXPRT, Google, HDXPRT, Laptops, Phones, results, Samsung, Tablets, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 4 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Good news for WebXPRT 4 testing!

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on November 2, 2023

Over the past several weeks, we’ve been working to find a solution to a problem with WebXPRT 4 test failures on Apple devices running iOS 17/17.1, iPadOS 17/17.1, and macOS Sonoma with Safari 17/17.1. While we put significant effort into an updated WebXPRT version that would mitigate this issue, we are happy to report that it now looks like we’ll be able to stick with the current version!

Last Thursday, Apple released the iOS 17.2 beta for participants in the Apple Developer Program. When we tested the current version of WebXPRT 4 on iOS 17.2, the tests completed without any issues. We then successfully completed tests on iPadOS 17.2 and macOS Sonoma 14.2 with Safari 17.2. Now that we have good reasons to believe that the iOS 17.2 release will solve the problem, sticking with the current WebXPRT 4 build will maximize continuity and minimize disruption for WebXPRT users.

Apple has not yet published a public release date for iOS/iPad OS/Safari 17.2. Based on past development schedules, it seems likely that they will release it between mid-November and early December, but that’s simply our best guess. Until then, users who want to test WebXPRT 4 on devices running iOS 17/17.1, iPadOS 17/17.1, or macOS Sonoma with Safari 17/17.1 will need to update those devices to iOS/iPad OS/Safari 17.2 via the Apple Developer Program.

To help Apple users better navigate testing until the public 17.2 release, we’ve added a function to the current WebXPRT 4 start page that will notify users if they need to update their operating system to test.

We appreciate everyone’s patience as we worked to find a solution to this problem! If you have any questions or concerns about WebXPRT 4, please let us know.

Justin

Posted in Apple, benchmark, Benchmarking, browser performance, Browser-based benchmarks, Cross-platform benchmarks, iOS, iPadOS, Performance benchmarking, Safari, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 4 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , |

Making progress with WebXPRT 4 in iOS 17

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on October 12, 2023

In recent blog posts, we discussed an issue that we encountered when attempting to run WebXPRT 4 on iOS 17 devices. If you missed those posts, you can find more details about the nature of the problem here. In short, the issue is that the Encrypt Notes and OCR scan subtest in WebXPRT 4 gets stuck when the Tesseract.js Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engine attempts to scan a shopping receipt. We’ve verified that the issue occurs on devices running iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma with Safari 17.

After a good bit of troubleshooting and research to try and identify the cause of the problem, we decided to build an updated version of WebXPRT 4 that uses a newer version of Tesseract for the OCR task. Aside from updating Tesseract in the new build, we aimed to change as little as possible. To try and maximize continuity, we’re still using the original input image for the receipt scanning task, and we decided to stick with using the WASM library instead of a WASM-SIMD library. Aside from a new version of tesseract.js, WebXPRT 4 version number updates, and updated documentation where necessary, all other aspects of WebXPRT 4 will remain the same.

We’re currently testing a candidate build of this new version on a wide array of devices. The results so far seem promising, but we want to complete our due diligence and make sure this is the best approach to solving the problem. We know that OEM labs and tech reviewers put a lot of time and effort into compiling databases of results, so we hope to provide a solution that minimizes results disruption and inconvenience for WebXPRT 4 users. Ideally, folks would be able to integrate scores from the new build without any questions or confusion about comparability.

We don’t yet have an exact release date for a new WebXPRT 4 build, but we can say that we’re shooting for the end of October. We appreciate everyone’s patience as we work towards the best possible solution. If you have any questions or concerns about an updated version of WebXPRT 4, please let us know.

Justin

Posted in benchmark, Benchmark metrics, browser performance, Browser-based benchmarks, Performance benchmarking, results, WebAssembly, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 4 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , |

An update on the issue with WebXPRT 4 in iOS 17

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on September 28, 2023

Recently, we informed XPRT blog readers that after updating Apple iPhones and iPads to iOS and iPadOS 17, respectively, we began to see WebXPRT 4 failures on those devices. In the Safari and Google Chrome browsers, WebXPRT 4 test runs were freezing while running the Encrypt Notes and OCR Scan workload. We were able to replicate the issue on every iOS/iPadOS 17 device we tested, and we also confirmed that WebXPRT 4 continues to run without issues on other non-iOS platforms.

Our team has been investigating the situation, and we’ve made some progress. It’s clear that the failed test runs are getting stuck when the WASM-based Tesseract.js Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engine attempts to scan a shopping receipt. During our research, we’ve discovered an issue when the current Tesseract.js engine runs on iOS 17. This issue is broader than WebXPRT 4, and the Tesseract team is aware of the problem. Future versions of iOS 17 or later versions of Tesseract.js may include fixes for the problem, but unfortunately, we don’t know whether or when a fix will be available.

We’re currently investigating possible workarounds for the problem, and hope to be able to start testing soon. Our goal is that any solution we implement will not significantly affect existing WebXPRT 4 scores on non-iOS 17 platforms.

We will continue to share any substantive progress updates with readers here in the blog. Once again, we apologize for any inconvenience this issue causes for WebXPRT 4 users, and we appreciate your patience while we work toward a solution. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact us!

Justin

Posted in Apple, benchmark, BenchmarkXPRT, browser performance, Browser-based benchmarks, Cross-platform benchmarks, Google Chrome, iOS, Performance benchmarking, Phones, Safari, Tablets, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 4 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , |

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